Friday, July 21, 2017. Dinner @ Arnaud's With A Financial Adviser.
In her spare time, Mary Ann likes to invest in the markets, particularly with a guy who a friend of hers said had an interesting batch of stocks that have been giving forth good yields. I have kept my nose out of this, and I don't know much to start with. Not exactly big pile of money, either.
Arnaud's was very busy tonight--a good state of affairs for this, the slackest time of the years. But Tales Of The Cocktails is going on, and that brings in hundreds of people, most of them in the spirits business. Yesterday, I was shut out Maypop, where I originally planned to dine. Full house.
The greeters at Arnaud's didn't have an agreeable space for me, either. The French 75 Bar--the central source for cocktails at Arnaud's--was standing room only, with an accompanying roar from the crowd. The hostesses took me then to the other bar--the one between the bathrooms. The one which, in the early days of Arnaud's rebirth in 1979, was a kind of private bar for the regulars.
The three musicians who play in the Jazz Bistro part of Arnaud's (same menu and service, slightly smaller dining room) were getting ready to begin their program. I have impressed these guys enough that they have routinely allowed me to join them in a song or two. Unfortunately, with Mary Ann here, there would be no crooning from me. I am not allowed to sing in public while she's there.
Charles, the longtime Maitre d'--chastised me for accepting my Negroni here, and took me to the French 75, which in the meantime had loosened up a bit. Mary Ann's broker friend was already there, going through a pile of soufflee potatoes with bearnaise. With him were an attorney friend and their respective dates. It was still too loud to carry on a conversation, but we soon located to the six-top in the main dining room.
The stock broker says that he thinks Arnaud's is the best restaurant in New Orleans. I would not say that, but I think it is a reasonable comment, especially if the person giving it has a preference for classic Creole-French cooking.
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Shrimp Arnaud (remoulade, really)[/caption]
All our new friends started with shrimp Arnaud, the restaurant's version of remoulade and arguably the best version of that dish anywhere. I had my usual starter oysters Arnaud. Here are five different baked oysters. This is the finest version around of this much-loved appetizer.
In the rest of the dinner, I saw a steak, a fish with crabmeat, and the blueberry duck. I had the restaurant's most famous entree. Trout meuniere here is a hybrid of the classic brown-butter version of that dish with the thick, brown sauce made with a little roux and veal stock. I haven't had it in a long time, and it will be another long time before I do it again.
Everybody is too full for dessert, but I had to order a big cube of bread pudding Fitzmorris just to keep my brand alive.
A jovial evening, if perhaps a little too loud. No deals were struck as far as I know.
Arnaud's. French Quarter: 813 Bienville. 504-523-5433.
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Saturday, July 22, 2017.
Mary Ann's plans to fly to Great Britain for a week is confirmed when Mary Leigh arranges a few days off her employment and signs onto the scheme. It includes leaving me behind, half to keep the homestead going, and half because I am cast in the Marys' minds as a wet blanket.
Whenever this happens--and it does rather often--MA treats me very well, breaking her diet so I can have her company for breakfast on weekends and lunches and dinners the few days before she boards the plane. There's nothing I can do but go along with the program.
I have a three-hour radio show starting at noon, so lunch is out today. Later in the evening, I suggest that dinner take place at Pardo's, a five-star restaurant in the new mall-ridden part of Covington. We haven't been in quite a while, and owner Osman Rodas always welcomes us. The restaurant was nearly full, but a few tables were open. Interesting crowd: the customers are either Millennials or Baby Boomers, with almost nobody either older or younger than those categories. The menu strikes me as more tuned to sophisticated boomers than for the younger diners, who would want more adventuresome cooking than this. I think this may be entirely about the North Shore location. When analyzing North Shore restaurants, we see a certain amount of time-and-space divergence among the customers.
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Pork chop and lima beans at Pardo's. [/caption]
We have a great dinner, one in which we both eat too much. I start with an unusual soup whose color is less than alluring, but whose flavor--which includes a lot of spices and herbs--is fascinating. MA has a massive pork chop for her entree. She loves it, but she feels bad about eating something this big. I don't share this sentiment and start off with both our scallop-oriented amuses bouche. (MA doesn't like scallops.) The fish of the day is sheepshead, a favorite of mine. It's nicely encrusted and, keeping pace with everything else, very generous in portion.
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Sheepshead at Pardo's.[/caption]
Osman joins us at the table at the end of the repast. He has plans for the future. I'm glad to hear that, because he seems to be ahead of his time most of the time.
Pardo's. Covington: 69305 Hwy 21. 985-893-3603.
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